Fear not therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows.
Read Chapter 10
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
City of God, book xxii, ch. 19: Though we may fairly enquire concerning our hair, whether all that has ever been shorn from us will return; for who would not dread such disfigurement. When it is once understood that nothing of our body shall be lost, so as that the form and perfectness of all the parts should be preserved, we at the same time understand that all that would have disfigured our body is to be united or taken up by the whole mass, not affixed to particular parts so as to destroy the frame of the limbs; just as a vessel made of clay, and again reduced to clay, is once more reformed into a vessel, it needs not that that portion of clay which had formed the handle should again form it, or that which had composed the bottom, should again go to the bottom, so long as the whole was remoulded into the whole, the whole clay into the whole vessel, no part being lost. Wherefore if the hair so often shorn away would be a deformity if restored to the place it had been taken from, it w...
Figuratively; that which is sold is our soul and body, and that to which it is sold, is sin. They then who sell two sparrows for a farthing, are they who sell themselves for the smallest sin, born for flight, and for reaching heaven with spiritual wings. Caught by the bait of present pleasures, and sold to the enjoyment of the world, they barter away their whole selves in such a market. It is of the will of God that one of them rather soar aloft; but the law proceeding according to God’s appointment decrees that one of them should fall. In like manner as, if they soared aloft they would become one spiritual body; so, when sold under sin, the soul gathers earthly matter from the pollution of vice, and there is made of them one body which is committed to earth.
For it is an unworthy task to number things that are to perish. Therefore that we should know that nothing of us should perish, we are told that our very hairs are numbered. No accident then that can befal our bodies is to be fear...
If these little creations fall not without God’s superintendence and providence, and if things made to perish, perish not without God’s will, you who are immortal ought not to fear that you live without His providence.
That He says, “The hairs of your head are all numbered,” shows the boundless providence of God towards man, and a care unspeakable that nothing of ours is hid from God.
Those who deny the resurrection of the flesh ridicule the sense of the Church on this place, as if we affirmed that every hair that has ever been cut off by the razor rises again, when the Saviour says, “Every hair of your head” - not is saved, but - “is numbered.” Where there is number, knowledge of that number is implied, but not preservation of the same hairs.
Do you see that the fear had already prevailed over them? Yea, for He knew the secrets of the heart; therefore He added, Fear them not therefore; for even should they prevail, it will be over the inferior part, I mean, the body; which though they should not kill, nature will surely take with her and depart. So that not even this depends on them, but men have it from nature. And if you fear this, much more should you fear what is greater, and dread Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. And He says not openly now, that it is Himself, Who is able to destroy both soul and body, but where He before declared Himself to be judge, He made it manifest.
But now the contrary takes place: Him, namely, who is able to destroy the soul, that is, to punish it, we fear not, but those who slay the body, we shudder at. Yet surely while He together with the soul punishes the body also, they cannot even chasten the body, much less the soul: and though they chasten it ever so severely, y...
Having set aside fear of death, that the Apostles should not think that if they were put to death they were deserted by God, He passes to discourse of God's providence, saying, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and one of them does not fall to the ground without your Father?”.
Not that God reckons our hairs, but to show His diligent knowledge, and great carefulness over us.
So that they would not fear that they are abandoned, He says, "If not even a sparrow is caught without My knowledge, how shall I abandon you whom I love?" And to show His precise knowledge and forethought for us He says that even the hairs of our head are numbered by Him. But do not think that the sparrows are snared by God’s doing; rather, that even the snaring of sparrows is not unknown to Him.
